Postby vivek_ahuja » 28 Feb 2007 18:33
AIRSPACE OVER SINGKALING HKAMTI
0903 HRS THURSDAY
Alpha flight was now taking the same route that the ALHs had taken earlier. They were flying fast and low through the valley next to Htangsan and doing so eastwards. Following the Nam Soleh River for the next twenty kilometres would bring them to the junction where another river, the Nampak, would join the former and both would head east to eventually join the Chindwin River. But waypoint two was the junction, not the Chindwin River, and from the junction Alpha Flight would go southeast for ten kilometres in order to reach Singkaling Hkamti.
Engaging the J-8s was another matter, however. Having reached the junction, the MIG-21s could turn south for a kilometre or so, and then pop up to medium altitude and then destroy the PLAAF aircrafts with R-73 missiles, given that they would be engaging them at twenty Kilometres or so. In addition, the pop-up manoeuvre would allow the Indian pilots to gain positional advantage in terms of height as the Phalcon had clearly informed them that the J-8s were attacking the C3I locations at low altitude. They would be laden with air to ground ordinance while the Indian MIG-21s were equipped with air-to-air missiles. It was hardly fair, but the Indian flight commander didn’t give a damn about that particular fact.
Within a minute the four aircrafts thundered over the junction and then began the turn to the south. In doing so, the aircrafts also changed relative positions so that the finger-four formation was now line abreast, more suitable for volley fire of air-to-air missiles. The aircrafts were thundering over Myanmar at an altitude of a few hundred feet. The onboard radars were off. This made sure that the Chinese aircrafts would not receive a warning from their radar warning receivers or RWR, that they were being watched, or that a threat was looming to the north. Flying without radar was dangerous, of course, because it made the host aircraft blind as well, but there was little to fear at the moment. The Chinese weren’t prepared and weren’t expecting a fight, which was the major factor for the mow threat perception.
And the Phalcon AWACS would pick up any inbound fighters coming at medium to high altitude from the Yunnan province long before they could pose a threat, and it was unlikely at best that those fighters would come at low altitude for such long ranges. So that meant that the MIG-21s could continue to keep their onboard radars off and take the data from the Phalcon which was informing the pilots that there were no inbound PLAAF aircrafts at the moment. It was also highly unlikely that the Chinese could launch any fighters in air-defence configuration in the short while that the Indian fighters would be over Myanmar Airspace. Further, the MIG-21’Bison’ variant was equipped with the Tarang RWR on the tail section of the fuselage which was recording no threats, although it was encountering what could only be some rebel ground based tracking radar at extreme range to the northeast, probably beyond the river Irrawaddy, near the Chinese Yunnan province. As is the problem with such radars, the range at which they return a signal is different, and lesser, than the range at which their electronic signature is picked up by any passive airborne EW device. Couple that with the chaos in the Myanmar airspace for the last few days wherein aircrafts had been moving to and fro from all sides, and it became highly improbable that this radar could represent any threat. Still, it gave the Indian pilots another reason to stay low until it suited them to gain altitude. All factors taken, however, the external threat was low, and the ball was in the Indian court.
The PLAAF J-8s, on the other hand, did not have any such extensive coverage and real-time data to support their operations at the moment. They were operating near the Indian border, where every advantage lay with the Indians both geographically, politically, militarily and psychologically. At the same time they were operating away from their home bases, and outside the coverage of their home grown AEW aircrafts mounted on the modified AN-12 platforms that had just begun their operations. Most importantly, however, they were without dedicated fighter escorts, which was unforgivable as far as the Chinese Fight commander was concerned. It was true that they had secured air supremacy over the loyalists within the first twenty-four hours, and the succeeding days had built up a level of complacency with regard to air operations within the PLAAF, but considering that the Indians had pledged their support for the loyalists should have stirred the PLAAF high staff a little, but it had not. And the only reaction from them had been laughter and jokes about the Indian air combat capability as compared to massive PLAAF strike force built up over the years and now assembling in the Yunnan and Xizang provinces. That it would take another two days to get them all in theatre had not been discussed. There had been further talk of correcting their mistakes from 1962, about how the PLAAF should have acted then to disrupt the Indian transport flights, again ignoring the fact that their inability to project power in that war had been due to different reasons, and that the current situation was somewhat different.
In 1962, not using air power for the entire duration of the month long war had been the result of political bungling at south block, not the result of incompetence on behalf of the IAF. Now, in this ‘war’, the use of air power had been authorized from day one. The Indian AWACS fleet was up, so were their fighters and their deployments were ahead of similar deployments on the Chinese side of the border. The Chinese knew a lot about the IAF capabilities, with information coming from their Pakistani allies who had set up spy networks in India, from their own EW aircrafts now flying over Tibet and northeast Myanmar and some other information from the rebels in Myanmar, who had happily handed over the Indian donated military equipment for evaluation to the Chinese ‘Advisors’.
But while this technical information had been sent up the PLAAF chain of command, the local PLAAF commanders knew more. They knew for example, the Psychological data coming from across the border that was difficult to put into words or in some report in organization such as the Chinese military. They were the ones who saw and recognized the subtle but still aggressive behaviour and the burgeoning confidence of their enemies. And small things could alert them to such things, right from closeness of the Indian AWACS flight path to the border to the movement of their fighters trying to mirror the PLAAF strike missions from across the border since the last day or so. Further, while the younger generation of PLAAF commanders could and did accept that the technological edge, understanding and competence was on the Indian side thus far, the older, senior generations would not. There were just too many racial factors involved in their case. And as a result any young officer who would have said that the IAF was competent and deserved our attention during any meeting of the PLAAF Brass might find himself on some remote airbase on the Mongolian border, and that wasn’t desirable, was it?
So when the PLAAF commander commanding the J-8II regiment in the Yunnan province had demanded SU-27 escorts for his four aircrafts heading near the Indian border, he had been overruled and as a result the four J-8II aircrafts found themselves laden with cluster bombs and rockets, without fighter escorts, and facing the threat from all sides and from both the air and ground dimensions. Diving low to evade the Phalcon’s radar had been among the only things he could do at this stage, after calling for support yet again, that is. But that was a while back, while they had made their ingress to the target zone. Right now, the Chinese Flight commander had other things on his mind, one of which included evading the wall of flak that the loyalists were putting up in front of him and his fellow pilots.
They had discovered a real hornet’s nest here, and he had already delivered a message to his superiors about the location of what he now knew to be the main loyalist C3I facility in the region.
His first high speed pass over the rebel base had caught them by surprise, but that hadn’t lasted for too long. His second pass had been slower, and the flak had been heavier, but still inaccurate, and that had allowed him to take out a single Tunguska anti-aircraft vehicle with unguided rockets before its crew could react. That had been the first order of business for the Chinese pilots: take out as many triple-A systems that you could within the first two passes. The other J-8s had some success as well, having destroyed several AAA systems while flak continued to go off around them. Some damage was inevitable, of course, and one of the J-8s was trailing a thin trail of smoke by the time the flight leader had decided to break off the attack. Among the screeching of his RWR systems trying to tell him that there were literally dozens of AAA ground radars tracking him, there was a new distinctive tone, this one warning the flight commander what he feared most: they were being acquired by airborne radars.
“Acquisition! Alpha One has acquired bandit head-on at Two-One Kilo-Mike. Alpha One to all Alpha units, weapons free…weapons free. Tally ho. Kill them all!â€
), but how do i post it here other than as a link?
...can't i just post it here similar to the "Miscellaneous Pictures" thread?
PLEASE try not to delay posting your stuff more than one day... try to understand the agony and apathy of your readers.. they are addicted to your work.
.ramana i have been reading shankar`s scenarios from day one...and am a big fan of his works.so make no mistake there.but on the other hand..this is a forum.it is supposed to be a place where people can express their opinions and discuss on things and as an admin you must be aware of it. i just did that...now to accept my suggestion or not is upto shankar only.
" but never mind that)...apart of that it was a suggestion indeed and nothing else...if i was rude than that was totally unintentional..and i apologise to shankar if he felt like so.
...or atleast some of them are 
.
)
That was real surprise...
, USS Comstock (LSD 45), USS Benfold (DDG 65), and USS Howard (DDG 83). ESG 5 also includes PHIBRON 5, the 15th MEU, Coast Guard Cutter Midgett (WHEC 726) for a possible invasion off the coast of pakiastan.
all u ppl have to do is to take a flight to Kilimanjaro airport. The flights available are KLM and Ehiopean. KLM from amterdam and Ehiopean Mumbai-Addis-JRO.